


What You're Looking For

by DuaeCat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Past Han/Lando, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-18 12:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12387909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuaeCat/pseuds/DuaeCat
Summary: Sometimes what you're looking for is right in front of you. Or right beside you, as the case may be.





	What You're Looking For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



“Alright Chewie, lets look over our options here,” Han Solo spoke casually, taking his seat at the cockpit. “There’s the Black Sun job, the Jalk Syndicate job, or Lando’s job. Or we can keep looking for something better.”

“ _Go with Lando’s job_ ,” Chewbacca suggested, and Han frowned before he could catch himself.

“Lando’s job? Sure, if we want to go three days out of our way. The other two are closer,” Han pointed out, just a little too quickly.

“ _Barely,_ ” Chewie grumbled, but dropped the subject.

“Closer is closer. I think the Jalk one. Should be an in and out, grab the goods, make our delivery, no problem.

Chewbacca made an agreeing sound, setting in the course for the pick-up point so the computer could start the calculations.

Han focused on the takeoff and getting to the jump point. He knew he was maybe being a little stubborn, but he didn’t care. This would go fine, easy money until the next big job came along.

 

* * *

 

 

Han was moving quietly down the path towards the pickup point when Chewbacca grabbed his shoulder.

“What do you mean there’s someone coming?” Han whispered back, as soon as he caught the signal Chewie was giving him. Shyriiwook was a language rooted in the need to communicate long distances through forests, it wasn’t designed for whispers and stealth. They managed anyway.

Chewie just growled and Han started looking for any sort of a hiding place. There weren’t supposed to be any patrols in the back of the building where they were going to pick up their shipment. It was all scrubby trees and underbrush, and with a wince Han decided there was no use for it.

“Come on,” Han whispered, stepping off the path and over to the only patch of brush that looked like it could provide enough cover, getting down on his knees and elbows and inching into it. He tried to protect his face as best he could, but he could feel the vegetation catching on his clothing and he hoped nothing was going to tear or rip. With a mournful sound Chewie copied him, pushing his way in a short distance away. They laid there quietly, listening as the heavy footsteps and quiet conversation approached.

Han shifted to make sure he could reach his blaster, not sure if he was hoping to get caught or not. He hated skulking in the bushes, but a fight could mean a lot more problems than he was willing to risk. Thankfully the security guards didn’t even slow down, not noticing anything out of place, and as their sounds faded with distance he started wiggling out of the bushes. It was slow going, the vegetation pricked uncomfortably at exposed skin and caught hard in his clothes. He ended up having to wrench himself free, hoping he wasn’t making too much noise. It felt like he had taken half the bush with him, and he squinted in the dim light and cursed. The bushes had been full of some sort of seed-bur with sharp hooks that scraped skin and caught in his clothing. He tried to brush at them and winced.

“This job better be worth it,” Han muttered, and Chewie huffed in agreement.

 

* * *

 

 

Han grumbled to himself as he scraped the last of the horrible burs off and into the chute to be incinerated. He’d held high hopes that the sonic clothes cleaner would have been able to deal with the nasty little bastards, but no such luck. Instead he’d ended up with clean burs that still needed to be picked off by hand. He gave his pants a shake, inspecting them, and then tossing them back into the cleaner in hopes that if he did miss any specks of vegetation the cleaner would be able to get them now that the main burs were cleared.

Han’s triumph was short lived, and he had barely started the cleaners when he heard Chewie let out a sound that could best be described as a combination of sadness and frustration.

“What is it?” Han asked, not even hesitating to jump up and head towards the noise, not sure what could have distressed Chewie so badly. Awful adventures in lousy hiding places aside, the cargo was stowed and safe and they were en-route to their drop off point.

He stopped abruptly in the doorway, just staring.

“ _I think you’re going to have to shave me,_ ”Chewie said, sounding just as forlorn as before, tugging at one of the mats on his forearm. It looked bad, instead of laying in smooth waves Chewbacca’s fur was snarled and knotted up in bunches that looked like they had to be pulling painfully away from the skin.

Han felt a stab of guilt, he’d been too busy grumbling about his own problems to pay much attention to what Chewie was going through. Fur had obviously been even worse than fabric in getting burs hooked into it and Han was suddenly very glad none of the burs had ended up in his hair.

“I know this looks bad,” Han started, trying to sound more optimistic than he felt. “But lets see if the sonic shower can get any of that out.”

“ _This is after I tried that, it made everything worse,_ ” Chewie said, and Han winced. It sounded like instead of vibrating them loose, the sonics had twisted and knotted the fur that much more snugly around the nasty burs.

“No shower. Ok, there has to be a better solution than just cutting them out.” Han thought quickly, going over his options. “How’s this, let me try a few things, and then if that doesn’t work, we can cut them out as a last resort? Just stay put, I’m going to get a few things.” Han ran over possible solutions in his head, along with what they might actually be able do do on ship without stopping to get anything.

“ _I don’t have much of a choice,_ ” Chewie pointed out, but he stayed put while Han hurried to gather what he needed.

 

* * *

 

 

“This seems like our best bet.” Han made himself as comfortable as he was going to get in the bench seat next to Chewie, putting his forearm into his lap and eyeing the giant mass of mats before picking a smaller clump near his wrist. He had a fine toothed comb and a large jug of some sort of vegetable oil that he wasn’t entirely sure how it had ended up on the ship since neither of them did any cooking. It seemed like it would be safer on skin and fur than any of the various mechanical lubricants the ship used. He poured out just enough to soak into the knotted fur around the burs.

“ _I’m going to be so greasy after this I’ll need an hour in the ‘fresher._ ” Chewie grumbled.

“Better greasy than matted up, the sonics can deal with a little oil,” Han pointed out, starting to work the comb through the fur as gently as he could.

It wasn’t as bad as he feared, as long as he went slowly and worked with a small amount of fur at a time it slid free of the main knot with only a little work. After a few minutes he was able to get the bur itself mostly uncovered, enough to grasp it and tug it up and slowly out. Han held it up for Chewie’s inspection triumphantly, but carefully. The hooks were sharp enough to prick into the pads of his fingers if he wasn’t careful.

“See? Told you there was a better solution than just cutting them out.” Han set the bur aside to go into the incinerator with the rest of its hateful brethren.

“ _That was just one single bur. I’m covered in them,_ ” Chewie motioned with his free hand over the rest of them and Han gritted his teeth.

“So I keep going until you’re not covered in them. The last time your fur got singed you sulked for a month and that was barely visible. If I cut them out you’re going to look like you lost a fight with some sort of… I don’t know, giant fur eating moth.” Han huffed, and got an answering amused chuff from Chewie.

“Besides, we’ve got a couple days to our destination. I can handle it.” Han tried not to think about exactly how much matted fur he still had to go through, pouring a little oil onto the next clump and starting the process all over again.

It was slow going. After a bit they discovered that with the help of the oil Chewie could tease out the burs on the areas he could easily reach himself and Han moved around to his back. A few times he miscalculated and tugged a little harder than he intended, earning a flinch and a snarl from Chewie. Even if Han knew his partner wouldn’t actually hurt him, he still winced, stopping and apologizing until Chewie settled again.

More often Han would forget and grip too hard at one of the burs, biting back a curse of his own when it sunk a barb into his finger and had to be tugged free. It was hard, tedious work, and it wasn’t long before Han’s back and shoulders were aching. Every so often he’d straighten up, cracking his back and look back at his work, pausing to stroke over the greasy but untangledfur, finger-combing it to remind himself that he was making progress.

“ _Why didn’t you want to take Lando’s job?_ ” Chewie spoke up after a while of just working in silence.

“Lando’s job was farther away, and there wasn’t any way for me to know the job we took would involve hiding in the bushes,” Han defended himself, doubling back down on his earlier excuse.

“ _You’ve been avoiding Lando for months now, I thought you two were still friends,_ ” Chewie pushed. “ _If you want to start just tossing out the jobs as soon as we get them, we can._ ”

“It’s not that. I like Lando a lot,” Han said, debating if he should say anything or not. He knew Chewie wasn’t going to push too hard if he made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it. But so what if he did? It wasn’t like Chewie was going to tell anyone.

“If I take the job I’m going to see him again, and it’s been long enough that I know I’m going to be tempted to ask him for another go at things and we both know how that’s turned out the past few times. It’s not fair to Lando to keep stringing him along, you know?” Han asked rhetorically, even if it was just as unfair to him. They always brought out the most in each other, best and worst. That was great for friends, but exhausting for any sort of long term relationship. Showing off to Lando had resulted in some amazing times, but it had also resulted in more than a few times waking up after a week on Zeltros missing all his credits, a good chunk of time, and one of his boots. He knew it was the same on Lando’s end, he’d encouraged him to take the plunge on some risky ventures that sometimes paid out big, and sometimes ruined months of careful planning on Lando’s part. Staying friends was better for both of them, even if he hated to admit it, even just to himself.

“ _You want to be with him?_ ” Chewie asked.

“No, yes, maybe. I don’t know.” Han scowled at the current knot of fur under his fingers and forced himself not to get too distracted. “What’s with all the questions?’

“ _You get lonely sometimes,_ ” Chewbacca said seriously, and Han chuckled, trying to play it off.

“How am I supposed to get lonely when I’ve got you right here?” Han freed the bur he was working on, adding it to the pile and petting through Chewie’s fur before patting him firmly on the shoulder.

“ _That’s different,_ ” Chewie pointed out.

“That’s because if we had a spat and decided to break up, it could be literal,” Han said before he could really think about it. He regretted the quip as he felt Chewie stiffen in front of him.

“ _Are you teasing, or saying you’re afraid it might not work out?_ ” Chewie pressed, and Han twitched. “ _You’re usually not afraid of failure,_ ”

“I am when it could cost me the only person in the galaxy I can stand to be around constantly and have watching my back. Plus there’s the whole thing where, you know, you owe me. Even if I said it didn’t matter you’d still have to stick around and I’m not going to force you into something like that. I’ve got some morals,” Han spoke quietly, still slowly working his fur free of the mats.

“ _You’re trying to protect me?_ ” Chewbacca chuffed, sounding amused.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Forgive me for worrying about these things.” Han grumbled, and then tossed one more bur onto the pile, sitting up and trying to crack his back as he surveyed his handiwork, stroking a hand over Chewie’s back to confirm. “I think I got them all.”

“ _Thank you._ ” And then Chewie was twisting around, putting a hand on his shoulder, looking right into Han’s eyes.

“You’re welcome,” Han muttered, leaning in, and before he could really think about what he was doing he was kissing him. There were several long beats before Chewie started to respond, and Han had just enough time to wonder if he’d made some sort of mistake before he was being grabbed in an enthusiastic hug, tugged halfway into Chewie’s lap as he was kissed breathless.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometime later, in a tangle of limbs and too-oily but bur-free fur, Han reflected back on his decision and found he couldn’t really recall why he’d thought it might be a bad idea. Sure things turned out badly sometimes, but better to play your hand than spend all your time on might-have-beens. If it didn’t work out he and Chewie would handle it the same way they always did, together, and he couldn’t really ask for more than that.

“ _You’re thinking again_ ,” Chewbacca growled into his hair, and Han laughed softly, leaning up to give him another lazy kiss.

“Just thinking, I think we can accept Lando’s job without worrying I’m going to do something stupid,”

Chewie huffed something that had no direct translation into Basic, but probably the closest meaning was ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ and Han just grinned.


End file.
